The new face of heart disease

It's not just a concern for older people and men

Crystal Ching has no family history of heart disease. She is under 50. Her cholesterol is low. She maintains a healthy weight. Yet she has heart disease.

“Suddenly one day I was overwhelmed by fatigue, upper body pain and nausea,” says the owner of a Sacramento pet products company. “When my husband said I could be having a heart attack, I told him it was impossible because I was too young.”

A physician and friend of Ching’s was not satisfied with her initial diagnosis of “heartburn” at a Sacramento hospital. He provided a prescription for a stress test, which can evaluate the heart’s response to varying levels of exertion. One of her customers passed along the phone number for cardiology at UC Davis Medical Center.

The stress test and an angiogram in UC Davis’ state-of-the-art cardiovascular diagnostic and treatment center revealed three narrowed blood vessels — one was a potentially life-threatening 90 percent occluded. Ching was immediately admitted to the hospital. Amparo Villablanca, a nationally recognized expert on heart disease in women, has been the cardiologist overseeing Ching’s care ever since.

“It is great to be connected with a team who could find the reasons for my symptoms, even though I had no obvious heart disease risk factors,” she says. “I made the right choice to go to UC Davis for my medical care.”